Caveat: Branco e Preto

Stuff.

Life keeps happening. I noticed I'm still losing hair. I didn't lose much from the top of my head during radiation (unlike my beard which disappeared almost entirely – but that just makes shaving easier), but I've been aware that the rate of loss overall seems to have accelerated. I keep finding grey and white hair: Oh… that's mine, isn't it? Well, used to be…. goodbye.


What I'm listening to right now.

Elis Regina, "Retrato em Branco e Preto."

letra:

Já conheço os passos dessa estrada
Sei que não vai dar em nada
Seus segredos sei de cor
Já conheço as pedras do caminho,
E sei também que ali sozinho,
Eu vou ficar tanto pior
E o que é que eu posso contra o encanto,
Desse amor que eu nego tanto
Evito tanto e que, no entanto,
Volta sempre a enfeitiçar
Com seus mesmos tristes, velhos fatos,
Que num álbum de retratos
Eu teimo em colecionar

Lá vou eu de novo como um tolo,
Procurar o desconsolo,
Que cansei de conhecer
Novos dias tristes, noites claras,
Versos, cartas, minha cara
Ainda volto a lhe escrever
Pra lhe dizer que isso é pecado,
Eu trago o peito tão marcado
De lembranças do passado e você sabe a razão
Vou colecionar mais um soneto,
Outro retrato em branco e preto
A maltratar meu coração

Caveat: On Revision

Here is an interesting quote on the process of revision.

Over and over again, we are told about the importance of polishing, of revising, of tearing up, and rewriting. I got the bewildered notion that, far from being expected to type it right the first time, as Heinlein had advised me, I was expected to type it all wrong and get it right only by the thirty-second time, if at all.

I went home immersed in gloom and the very next time I wrote a story, I tried to tear it up. I couldn’t make myself do it. So I went over to see all the terrible things I had done, in order to revise them. To my chagrin, everything sounded great to me. (My own writing always sounds great to me.) Eventually, after wasting hours and hours–to say nothing of suffering spiritual agony—I gave it up. My stories would have to be written the way they always were—and still are.

What is it I am saying, then? That it is wrong to revise? No, of course not—anymore than it is wrong not to revise.
– Isaac Asimov

I was forced to revise my Sunday walk, as once I was outside I came to the stark realization that it had become cold. It was 1°C. I guess it's time to break out the winter clothes.


What I'm listening to right now.

John Newman, "Love Me Again." The video is rather depressing (spoiler), if you watch all the way through.

[daily log: walking, 4 km]

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